Win or lose, a special baseball moment between players, coaches and fans

Once in a while, every so often, you can encounter one of those memorable moments at a high-school game.

There was one at All-City Field on Friday and it wasn’t as if it decided the game.

It just sort of happened. Time seemed to stand still, slower than the crawling traffic headed in both directions on I-25 behind the outfield fence.

It was the bottom of what was supposed to be the last inning — in the case of schoolboys, the seventh. The bases were loaded. Full count. The loser goes home.

On the mound was Highlands Ranch’s Ryan Burr, who seemed to get stronger as the game went on, throwing big-boy smoke in the 90-plus mph range and undoubtedly in his last inning of the day, if not of his schoolboy career. At bat was Cherry Creek’s No. 3 hitter, Griffin Jax.

Before the pitch was thrown, a fairly full Cherry Creek side of the bleachers rose to its feet.

Ditto for the Highlands Ranch side with its faithful.

You can view these types of special situations on television in the American and National Leagues’ Playoffs as well as the World Series each year, but this one was all Colorado, all prep and all live. It was the Bruins, the most-accomplished program of the modern era, trying to win it in their final at-bat, against the Falcons, who came really close a year ago and were trying to do it again.

For those of you who don’t know, when we get to the final rounds of upper-classification baseball, and particularly for Class 5A, All-City can rock, even for an outdoor venue.

Anyway, the anticipation made for a thrill, including in both dugouts. And everyone in the stands couldn’t wait for the pitch. The only thing that could have proved better was if it could have happened again and again after multiple foul balls.

Highlands Ranch coach John Cackowski, obviously down after the game, which resulted in a 3-2 Cherry Creek victory in eight innings on a walk-off safety by Andy Heider, had just said goodbye to a tight group of talented seniors, but allowed that it will stay with him indefinitely.

“I think it was a pretty special moment when both stands were facing and there were two outs and a full count,” Cackowski said. “Both sides were standing (and clapping) and I think that was a special moment in high-school athletics.”

Ultimately, Jax went out on a ground ball to first base to end the threat and the Bruins won it an inning later, but it really wasn’t the point, was it?

Neil Devlin, originally from the Philadelphia area, has covered high school sports in Colorado for more than 30 years, writing about the people, athletes and events that encompass the Rocky Mountain prep sports world.